Effect of the microscopic morphology of a filler on its dispersion in a PI matrix: Calculation and analysis

The preparation of crosslinked polyimide (PI) composites via a blending technique is reported. Different kinds of organic or inorganic silicon‐based nanofillers have been used for this purpose. A comparison is made between carefully chosen pairs of fillers, the choice depending on the compatibility of the crosslinked PI with the filler, to study the effects of the crosslinked PI matrix structure and fillers with different micromorphology. The dispersion of the filler is characterized with SEM as uniformly dispersed or gelled. It is found that with different micromorphology of filler, the PI matrix can be loaded with different mass fractions of filler, and the point at which gelation occurs is not the same. In order to study this behavior, these fillers are subjected to a quadratic mean equation calculation and analysis. Compared to pure PI, all obtained crosslinked composites have a higher glass‐transition temperature and a lower dielectric constant.